Homo Economicus (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

My good friend Eve Harrow was kind enough to forward an excellent article to me that is a must read for anyone who is interested in a (notice I didn't say 'the') sociological explanation for the prevailing disconnect between western and Muslim societies. 

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite:

"A decade and a half ago, in his most famous book 'The Clash Of Civilizations', Professor [Samuel] Huntington argued that western elites’ view of man as homo economicus was reductive and misleading — that cultural identity is a more profound behavioral indicator than lazy assumptions about the universal appeal of western-style economic liberty and the benefits it brings.

Very few of us want to believe this.

“The great majority of Palestinian people,” Condi Rice, the Secretary of State, said to Cal Thomas a couple of years back, “they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don’t believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that’s what people are going to do.”

Cal Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: “Do you think this or do you know this?”

“Well, I think I know it,” said Secretary Rice.

“You think you know it?”

“I think I know it.”

I think she knows she doesn’t know it. But in the modern world there is no diplomatic vocabulary for the kind of cultural fault line represented by the Israeli/Palestinian dispute, so even a smart thinker like Dr. Rice can only frame it as an issue of economic and educational opportunity.

Of course, there are plenty of Palestinians like the ones the Secretary of State describes: you meet them living as doctors and lawyers in Los Angeles and Montreal and Geneva … but not, on the whole, in Gaza. In Gaza, they don’t vote for Hamas because they want access to university education. Or, if they do, it’s to get Junior into the Saudi-funded Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza, where majoring in rocket science involves making one and firing it at the Zionist Entity. In 2007, as part of their attempt to recover Gaza from Hamas, Fatah seized 1,000 Qassam rockets at the university, as well as seven Iranian military trainers."

Go read the whole thing and broaden your horizons. 

Is there a good possibility this guy is completely wrong.  Of course... we're talking about sociology.  This discipline doesn't have calibrated instruments that can prove or disprove the truth/accuracy of any given theory.   But this particular explanation for the cultural disconnect between 'us' and 'them' rings true to me. 

I'd be interested to know how others feel after reading the piece.